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911 Nurse's Bathtub Baby
Location: Walla Walla, Washington Date: June 10, 1991 Story Dana Treganowan never had any trouble getting her two young daughters--Laura, 2, and Caroline, 11 months--to take a bath. "When they were cranky, that was always something good to do with them, because they liked something good to do with them, and liked playing in the water," she said. "In fact, it was always a struggle to get them out of the tub." On the evening of June 10, 1991, after her husband, Doug, left the house to do some construction work while it was still light out, Dana decided to bathe the girls, putting Caroline in the floater ring she had used with her since she was 6 months old and could sit up, while Laura played in the water at the shallow end of the tub. "I usually don't leave them in the bathtub unattended," Dana said, "and as I was thinking of going into the bedroom to make a quick phone call, it did cross my mind that this was something I shouldn't do. But then I thought, 'It will only take a few minutes--nothing will happen.' " The conversation lasted about 3 minutes. "I could hear Laura playing and laughing, but I felt something was wrong. Something inside me said, 'Check on your kids.'" When Dana returned to the bathroom, she found Caroline out of her ring, floating belly up and no longer breathing. She pulled her from the water and frantically dialed 911. "When I checked for her pulse, I couldn't find a heart rate," Dana said. "I thought I had let her drown." Her call reached dispatcher Stephanie Wyatt, who had the desperate mother tell her, "My little girl fell in the tub--she's blue!" Sergeant Jim Romine listened to Wyatt take the call, then left immediately to help. "When she said 'Your baby's blue?' I immediately thought of a dead baby. There was one thing on my mind, and that was to get there. I didn't know if it was going to make a difference or not, but I was going to try." Although Dana was a registered nurse, in her panic she could not remember her emergency training. "I was hysterical. Everything I knew as a nurse went out the window. I thought I had lost my child," she said. For a moment, dispatcher Wyatt felt herself affected by Dana's panic. "I was scared to death. I wasn't prepared mentally for the call," she said. "I had to control myself because I felt myself reacting as a mother, not as a dispatcher," she said. But she did gain control of herself, and patiently talked Dana through rescue breathing and CPR for her stricken child. "Keep it up," she told her. "Keep it up. Just keep going until they get there and take over." Within 3 minutes of Dana's call, volunteer emergency medical technician Holly Jones and her husband were at Dana's house. "This was my first call as an EMT and it was extremely scary for me," Holly said. "You know, you think, 'Maybe I'm not ready for this.'" A city fire department unit also arrived, led by senior paramedic Chuck Hawman, and Dana hung up the phone to give Caroline, who was barely breathing, over to his care. My first thought was, 'This kid's going to die,'" Hawman said. "There was absolutely no time to waste. We suctioned her airway really aggressively, and that was the turning point. We were able to suction out what was occluding her airway. That's when she started to cry." Back at the EMS center, Wyatt had finally allowed herself to experience all the feelings she had suppressed while handling the call. "When the call is over, all the emotions that you put on the shelf just come flooding back into you. You just feel like you want to fall apart. I hoped and prayed that that baby would live--but I had no way of knowing," she said. Sergeant Romine, who had also arrived at the scene of the emergency, did not forget Wyatt's concern, and called her to share the good news. "I heard the baby crying, and it sounded like gold," he said. "I got the phone, dialed the dispatcher, and said, 'Listen to this.' " "I wasn't expecting that at all. We normally don't get that happening," Wyatt said. "I could have hugged him for doing that. Then I bawled my eyes out." Caroline was not fully conscious when she arrived at St. Mary's Medical Center. "Typically, if the brain is deprived of oxygen for somewhere between 4 and 6 minutes, there is the potential of significant damage to the child," the physician who took charge of her case later said. Dana and Doug kept an anxious vigil at Caroline's bedside. "It was real hard because I just looked at her, and she was only 11 months old and super helpless. It was so painful, just waiting for her to get up and say, 'Hey, let's go play.' It was like running in mud. You just didn't seem to get anywhere," Doug said. "He sat next to her bed and talked to her for hours," Dana said. "It seemed like every hour she became more responsive, and by the morning she was sitting up and saying, 'Daddy and Mama.' It almost seemed like a miracle." Caroline was released from the hospital the next day, with no brain damage. "When it happened, I felt terribly guilty and that she has put her life in my hands and that she's only a little person and that I've failed her," Dana said. "I think I'm a good mom and that I'm a good person, but I did something that was really irresponsible. If I can keep this from happening to one other person, it's worth it." "The dispatcher played a huge role. I think she made the difference in saving Caroline's life. I can still remember her voice--it was very reassuring, like an angel." "Drowning can occur in 1 inch of water, and the bathtub is the mostly likely place that a child will die or suffer a near-drowning. Caroline was very lucky," her doctor at the hospital said. Category:1991 Category:Washington Category:Drownings